As an avowed atheist living among a sea of believers (both locally and on the Internet), I have spent a lot of time discussing my beliefs (or lack thereof, as the case may be). The purpose of this blog is not to prove the non-existence of God or "de-convert" anybody from their faith, but simply to preserve some of these discussions and allow me to flesh them out through the process of writing them down, as well as to share them with anybody who might be interested in reading them.

Friday, April 14, 2017

The Logical Impossibility of God

Is God constrained by the laws of logic? It's an important question, and the answer seems to be, "Yes, but only when it's convenient to say that He is."

It's an old chestnut of a question, but whenever theists start talking about how their particular version of God is "omnipotent" some atheist wag will invariably ask, "If God is omnipotent, can He create a stone so massive that He can't move it?" To which the theist will usually respond, "that's a logical impossibility and being omnipotent means being able to do anything logically possible." OK, so no creating a stone too massive for Him to move, no creating a square circle, etc. Got it. And, presumably, this is because logic transcends human understanding and provides general principles of existence. There isn't "human logic" and "God logic," there's just logic.

With me so far?

OK, now one of the fundamental principles of logic is the so-called Law of Non-contradiction, which in its basic form states that, "Contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time." This means that the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive. It also means that something cannot simultaneously be two opposite things. This is why, for example, there can be no such thing as a square circle or an married bachelor since both concepts involve a self-contradiction.

So, is there anything about God's supposed nature that violates the Law of Non-contradiction?

Well, one place to start would be to examine the relationship between him supposedly being both omnipotent (all powerful) and omnibenevolent (all loving). This apparent contradiction was perhaps best stated by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who put it this way:

God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is
able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both
willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which
is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and
unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor
able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is
both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source
then are evils? Or why does He not remove them?

Or, as it is commonly put:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is not benevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence comment evil?
Is He neither willing nor able? Then why call Him God?

So that's it, right? The so-called "Problem of Evil" proves the logical impossibility of God since (a) Evil cannot exist if there is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God and (b) we know from our own experience that there is, in fact, evil. Well, not quite...

Although this argument has been sufficient to convince many people throughout history to reject the idea of God, those who cling to their beliefs have come up with numerous ways to get around the apparent contradiction:

"Evil," they will say, "is the result of human free will, and since God values free will more than anything He allows evil." Except, of course, this only applies to evil acts done as a result of human free will (murder, rape, robbery, etc.) and wholly ignores things like pain and suffering caused by genetic diseases, natural disasters, accidents, etc.

"When Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, the world fell into a fallen state, so all the evils in the world are a direct result of those actions." Except, of course, this doesn't explain why God would need to punish the entire world (not to mention universe) because of the actions of two people. Why not simply punish Adam and Eve (and all their descendants if God were feeling particularly vengeful) and leave the rest of the natural world alone? Why make animals die horribly painful and cruel deaths just to teach us a lesson? Wouldn't it be a more powerful lesson if everything in nature was blissfully happy except for us? Besides, God is the one who set the whole system up in the first place, so it was his decision to make the whole universe suffer for the sins of Adam and Eve and not their free will.

"This life is a test, and how we deal with suffering will determine our eternal fate." Well, OK, but that seems awfully callous when applying it to, say, young children who are born with horrible genetic diseases that cause them to lead painfully short lives. It also doesn't address all the pain and suffering throughout the rest of the natural world.

"This life is but a twinkling of an eye when compared to all eternity, so any pain and suffering we experience while alive will seem like a mere pin-prick when compared to the rest of our existence."

And the list goes on and on. The bottom line is that there's always some way to define "omnipotent", "omnibenevolent" and even "evil" to avoid inherent contradictions, even if the newly defined terms don't really make much sense or accord with experience. "An all-loving God is one who lets His children have free will, not freedom from suffering." "Pain and suffering are actually good things, not evils." You get the idea. As I said, a lot of people are not convinced by these rationalizations, but they do make it hard to state unequivocally that God is logically impossible solely due to the so-called Problem of Evil.

OK, how about this? In order to create the universe, which is the totality of all time and space, God must exist outside of time and space. Which means He must not be composed of matter or energy Himself. But, if God is not composed of matter or energy, how can He possibly have created matter and energy in the first place and how can He continue to interact with it today? That seems like a logical contradiction, doesn't it?

Well, not quite. Even if we accept that God is composed of neither matter nor energy, we cannot state unequivocally that He would therefore be unable to interact with matter and energy. In the same way that energy can interact with matter despite not being composed of matter, God could be composed of some entirely different substance (let's call it "mind" or "spirit") that can interact with matter and energy in some way we just can't understand. Of course, we now know that energy actually is composed of matter in a very real sense, but that just means the analogy (commonly used by theistic apologists) is a bad one. It doesn't change the fact that God logically could be composed of some other substance that allows Him to interact with matter and energy without being composed of matter or energy Himself.

OK, so the mere fact that God somehow interacts with matter and energy while being composed of neither is not, in and of itself, a logical impossibility. I think we are getting very close, however...

In order to avoid any apparent contradictions inherent in the notion of a God who is timeless and not composed of matter or energy, Christian apologists over the years have declared that God is both "Transcendent" and "Immanent". According to Wikipedia, the two terms are defined as follows:

Transcendence refers to the aspect of a god's nature and power
which is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all
physical laws. This is contrasted with Immanence, where a god is said to be fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways.

Or, in other words, God is both wholly apart from the material universe and wholly within the material universe. At the same time. He is simultaneously B and not B. His very nature is therefore in violation of the Law of Non-contradiction and He is therefore logically impossible. Q.E.D.

Now, some will argue (and believe me, they have) that it doesn't matter if God is logically impossible since we're only talking about human logic here and God is above such things. Well, fine, except then why do you claim that an omnipotent God can't create a rock too massive for Him to move or can't create a square circle? Aren't those just principles of human logic as well? It seems that if you want to apply some logical principles to God, you would have to apply all of them (not just the ones that are convenient).

It seems that theists are left with three possible responses to this:

They can claim that God isn't bound by anything whatsoever and therefore can actually create a rock too massive for Him to move, create a square circle, etc. Of course, once you throw all logic out the window it becomes rather pointless to discuss anything, but some theists are apparently willing to do just this.

They can claim that Immanence and Transcendence aren't actually opposites despite the plain definitions of the words. But, since the whole idea of God being both Immanent and Transcendent is a way to explain how He could create the universe and still be part of the universe, there's no real way of getting around the fact that they are, in fact, complete opposites. A lot of theists do go down this path, but they are usually the same ones who will write dissertations on how God can simultaneously be three distinct beings and one unified being that is absolutely not made up of three distinct beings whatsoever ["We worship
one God in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither
confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For the
person of the Father is one; of the Son, another; of the
Holy Spirit, another. But the divinity of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the
majesty equal. Such as is the Father, such also is the Son,
and such the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son
is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is
infinite, the Son is infinite, the Holy Spirit is infinite.
The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit
is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal Beings, but
one eternal Being. So also there are not three uncreated
Beings, nor three infinite Beings, but one uncreated and one
infinite Being. In like manner, the Father is omnipotent,
the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent.
And yet there are not three omnipotent Beings, but one
omnipotent Being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God,
and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet there are not three
Gods, but one God only. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord,
and the Holy Spirit is Lord. And yet there are not three
Lords, but one Lord only. For as we are compelled by
Christian truth to confess each person distinctively to be
both God and Lord, we are prohibited by the Catholic
religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords. The
Father is made by none, nor created, nor begotten. The Son
is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but
begotten. The Holy Spirit is not created by the Father and
the Son, nor begotten, but proceeds. Therefore, there is one
Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy
Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity there is
nothing prior or posterior, nothing greater or less, but all
three persons are coeternal and coequal to themselves. So
that through all, as was said above, both unity in trinity
and trinity in unity is to be adored. Whoever would be
saved, let him thus think concerning the Trinity."]

They can just wave their magical Wand of DefinitionsTM and state that God is defined as the sort of being who can be both Transcendent and Immanent without there being any sort of logical contradiction involved.

The bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is that God is absolutely and undeniably logically impossible, a self-contradiction (at least as commonly depicted and worshiped). The only question is whether theists actually care about this fact or whether cognitive dissonance will force them to compartmentalize and ignore it so as to not feel any angst about their beliefs.

5 comments:

there can be no such thing as a square circle or an *unmarried bachelor* since both concepts involve a self-contradiction.

Do you mean 'married bachelor'?

God is above and beyond mundane logic, but mundane logic can be used to understand the existence and nature of the Absolute Truth to some degree. If cannot be used to know the Absolute Truth in full, but it can act as the catalyst that leads one to initiate the process that does give a full experience of the Absolute Truth. Therefore it has value even though it cannot adequately describe the Absolute Truth.

The trinity is a mish-mash of three of the five aspects of Godhead exhibited by Sri Pancatattva. God the Supreme controller; God within the heart; and God represented through His pure devotee. The other two features are unknown to Christians.

God is both transcendent and immanent because He can expand into multiple forms for different functions. Each expansion is simultaneously equal to the original but different from it because it is not the original. It is His expansions that permeate the universe within every atom and within the heart of every living entity in a neutral capacity, and it is the original form of Godhead who remains outside the universe in the spiritual world beyond material time and space. The origin is called Krishna and the expansions within the material world are called Ksirodakshayi Visnu.

God can see a flat Earth. Imagine God being an entity that exists beyond both space and time. From his point of view, he can see the Earth in our present time, but since he looks across all time, the Earth is just a thin flat slice from his point of view, meaning it does not extend across time. Thus from his higher dimensional point of view, the Earth is flat.

However, if this was somewhat mentioned within say some biblical text of some kind, man may see it the wrong way and think that this means that the earth is truly spatially flat.

Therefore much of what is written in the bible can be misinterpreted when seen by the eyes of mere mortals.

I think you are too compliant about the meaning of words. They are our words. We invented the word "evil" to describe a certain concept. To allow theologians to give it some other meaning is to allow gibberish. There is evil in the world because there are examples that we invented the word to describe, like the suffering and death of millions of children by smallpox. What would be say of a man you could, at no cost to himself, prevent this but did not? God didn't prevent it. But somebody did prevent it - namely some scientists and doctors and health workers. So there's no question that it was possible.